She made no immediate answer, but, letting her hands fall idly in her lap, looked straight before her, her beautiful eyes fixed upon vacancy, and her mind amply occupied in considering the pros and cons of the situation. Then Sir Eustace took heart of grace; bending down, he kissed the Madonna-like face. Still there was no response. Only very gently she pushed him from her, whispering:
“Yes, Eustace, I think I shall be able to tell you that you may hope.”
Bottles waited to see no more. With set teeth and flaming eyes he crept, a broken man, through the door that led on to the landing, crept down the stairs and into the hall. On the pegs were his hat and coat; he took them and passed into the street.
“I have done a disgraceful thing,” he thought, “and I have paid for it.”
Softly as the door closed Sir Eustace heard it; and then he too left the room, murmuring, “I shall soon come for my answer, Madeline.”
When he reached the street his brother was gone.
CHAPTER VI
Sir Eustace did not go straight back to the Albany, but, calling a hansom, drove down to his club.
“Well,” he thought to himself, “I have played a good many curious parts in my time, but I never had to do with anything like this before. I only hope George is not much cut up. His eyes ought to be opened now. What a woman——” but we will not repeat Sir Eustace’s comments upon the lady to whom he was nominally half engaged.
At the club Sir Eustace met his friend the Under-Secretary, who had just escaped from the House. Thanks to information furnished to him that morning by Bottles, who had been despatched by Sir Eustace, in a penitent mood, to the Colonial Office to see him, he had just succeeded in confusing, if not absolutely in defeating, the impertinent people who “wanted to know.” Accordingly he was jubilant, and greeted Sir Eustace with enthusiasm, and they sat talking together for an hour or more.